Friday, May 27, 2016

As the gentle reader surely remembers, Scott Walker was the subject of not just one, but two, John Doe investigations.

The first investigation was into illegal campaign donations and illegal campaigning while Walker was running for governor the first time. It resulted in six felony convictions of Walker's closest friends, allies and staffers.

The second investigation, which was born of the first one, delved into the illegal collaboration between Walker's campaign and various dark money groups.

The Walker, the other state Republicans and the dark money group, led by the Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCfG) have tried anything and everything they could to kill the John Doe investigation, including a coordinated series of lawsuits against the prosecutors. Eventually, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, being as corrupt and beholden to the dark money groups as Walker, ruled against John Doe. They ordered the investigation stopped and that the prosecutors should turn over all their evidence and destroy all the copies thereof.

But one thing that the right wing dark money groups didn't count on was their own greed and overreach.

In another case, former top Walker aide Cindy Archer filed a frivolous lawsuit in federal court against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and the other prosecutors, claiming they violated her civil rights by investigation the commission of a crime to which she was a party. In what was surely pure coincidence, the lawsuit was funded by WCfG and had the same lawyers as the other anti-John Doe suits.

It was obvious early on that the lawsuit was bogus. Not only were the facts in the case incorrect, but an audio tape of the actual investigation showed that almost every claim she made in her lawsuit was a flat out lie.

On Thursday, The Honorable Lynn Adelman ruled against Archer and her dark money supporters, as he should have:

In his decision, Adelman struck down several charges of Archer and her attorney, including that the warrant executed in her home was improper. He outlined a timeline for the development of both John Doe investigations and noted how conservative advocacy groups launched a "full blown campaign against the investigations and against the defendants," led by Eric O'Keefe at the Wisconsin Club for Growth.

“The plaintiff’s allegation of a lack of probable cause for the search of her home is contradicted by the warrant,” Adelman wrote.

He said the warrant was properly executed and issued by Judge Neal Nettesheim, who concluded investigators had probable cause to search Archer’s home.

Good news indeed. But there's more. There's always more.

Adelman went a step further and really foiled the dark money groups by reversing the Wisconsin Supreme Court in regards to destroying the evidence:

On Thursday, Adelman rejected those claims, and allowed for some of the evidence in the John Doe probes to be preserved with his court. Archer's attorneys had asked for the court to bar Chisholm's investigators from having access to evidence in the John Doe probes. Adelman rejected that request in part, allowing the investigators to file evidence from the second John Doe probe with his court clerk, but said the evidence will remain under seal and not be docketed.

He noted that the order does not violate Wisconsin's Supreme Court order calling for the evidence to be collected and destroyed.

"My order does no more than permit the defendants to provide copies of the relevant materials to the clerk of this court. It does not address the issue of access to the materials or whether the state Supreme Court or this court should decide that issue. Thus, the order does not in any way weaken the state court’s determination that the records should remain secret."

That odor you smell is Walker and his buddies soiling themselves.

Then it just keeps getting better when the reporter, Katelyn Ferral of The Cap Times, listed some of the things Adelman cited in his ruling, which shows just how corrupt things have gotten:

The evidence included:

– emails from Walker’s staff advising him to “[s]tress that donations to WiCFG are not disclosed” and to tell donors “that you can accept corporate donations and it is not reported;”

– a $1 million deposit into WiCFG from Stephen Cohen, founder of SAC Capital Advisers, shortly after Walker was scheduled to meet with an SAC representative;

– a March 2012 email from Walker to his fundraiser stating that “Bruce and Susie Kovner said that they want to give more” and 10 days later a $50,000 check from Bruce Kovner arrived in WiCFG’s account. The check’s memo line read “501c4-Walker;” and

– a 2012 email from Walker’s fundraiser to Walker regarding “meetings to make happen while in Sea Island . . . Paul Singer: Grab him.” A few months later, $250,000 was deposited into WiCFG’s account from Singer.

In the meantime, we are still waiting to see if the Supreme Court of the United States will hear a petition filed by Chisholm, asking them to vacate the state's supreme court's decision. They should since at least two of the justices had benefited greatly from WCfG in their own races.

Folks, make sure you keep a lot of popcorn in stock. This could get real interesting.